The Miami paper profiles CareCloud, an up-and-coming provider of a cloud-based PM solution. The company has hired 30 people in the last five months (110 total employees) and raised $20 million in new VC funding. CEO Albert Santalo says the company is not yet profitable, though it grew revenues about 600% in 2011. The basic solution is $499 a month. It also offers an RCM option based on a percentage of collections and just rolled out an EHR.

US health spending grew 3.9% in 2010, which was only .01 percentage points faster than the 2009 rate and the second-slowest rate in 51 years. The slower growth is blamed on high unemployment, loss of private health insurance coverage, lower median incomes, and higher patient deductibles and co-pay. Total 2010 spending was $2.6 trillion, or $8,402 per person.

At the same time healthcare spending is falling, payer reimbursements are declining. The average commercial payer reimbursements for new and established office visits fell 2.86% in 2011, though Medicare paid more than commercial payers for almost all office visits.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and Sanofi Pasteur introduce vaccine packaging technology that includes a 2D scan for tracking lot numbers and expiration dates. Pediatricians will no doubt be sending enhancement requests to their software vendors to integrate 2D scanning with their EMR application.

The number of physicians employed by hospitals has grown by 32% since 2000. Hospitals employ 212,000 physicians, or about 20% of all physicians.